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Ya know, we've all been eagerly awaiting the 2020 season, when the Padres would FINALLY start realizing the potential from their long rebuild. We've been talking about 2020 being the year, for a couple of years now. We've eagerly followed Richards TJ recovery, and what a healthy Richards could bring to the 2020 staff. We're all relatively certain that we'll see Gore in his rookie season, at some point in 2020. Preller built an awesome bullpen for 2020. He brought in Pham, and Grisham looks every bit a major league center fielder.

But, all of this is just useless speculation, unless they play the games. It's like Tony Gwynn, the last .400 hitter in baseball, except because of a strike shortened season, he wasn't. He might have been. We'll never know. It's really, irrelevant to even speculate.

If 2020 is a lost, never played season, we'll be into yet another off-season. Yet another, five months of waiting, of hoping, of wondering, about the fate of the now 2021 Padres.

What will be lost in the 2020 aborted MLB season, can never be regained. Even now, if MLB restarts in May, so much has been lost that the winners will forever have that asterisk next to their record. The talk will forever be about who won or lost, due to the delayed season start.

This just sucks, and there's no silver lining to it. No amount of justification will make up for what's been lost, in the MLB for players and fans, in the economy, the business and jobs lost, senior year high school dances and graduations, it's all gone forever. 2020 is an abortion of a year for 330 million American lives.

I hope it was worth it for those eagerly calling for a long term, shut down of America.

I was in agreement with every word you said and with the general sadness of your post, and then I got to that last sentence where you ruined the whole thing.

Yes, it's all worth it if it saves lives, and I'm trying really hard to understand why you, at least to my eyes, appear to disagree. Funny how in your penultimate paragraph you lamented the loss off jobs, baseball and high school dances, but not the loss of lives.
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Americans* are dying at a rate of almost 2000 a day right now, and who knows how high that number would be right now if we hadn't shut everything down. Nobody wants this. Nobody is happy about the shutdown. But we realize it's a necessary evil in order to save lives. Baseball, as well as the other sports leagues, should be way down anyone's list of priorities right now (other than those adversely affected economically by its absence, I suppose). Lives are more important than entertainment.
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(*Side note: 2020 is an abortion of a year, to use your words, for the rest of the planet as well. I'm just focusing on the US apect because that's what you focused on in your post)

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Americans* are dying at a rate of almost 2000 a day right now, and who knows how high that number would be right now if we hadn't shut everything down.

The original Imperial College numbers were 2.2M dead. With mitigation added in, it dropped to 1/2M. Fauci claimed less than that, 100K to 200K dead. Current estimate is 60K dead. 80K died in 2018 from the "normal" flu. Normal figures from cardiac arrests, renal failure, and other natural causes are down, because they are all being added to the CoViD-19 figures. People die every year. People die every day. It's sad. It happens, from all sorts of causes. Shutting down a $22T economy and bankrupting millions of Americans and American businesses won't stop people from dying.

The bottom line is that the numbers you are relying on, don't add up, and neither you nor anyone else can prove, in any way, shape or form, that the national shutdown was the key mitigation factor, that reduced deaths. Certainly, it helps. However, we haven't shutdown before. Will we do it again? Fauci and Birx are already talking about "the next time".

So, we can agree to disagree, as friends with common goals and interests. However, I'm not being insensitive, foolish, or insane, when I state flatly that the model numbers were garbage, the shutdown is too costly an approach to solving the annual flu problem (there are different strains every year), and that this country MUST reopen for business, or face a decade of ruin. I'm in a high risk category. If I die from CoViD-19, I STILL won't change my opinion that re-mediating it, maybe saving my own life, is worth the long term financial damage. Generations yet unborn, will bear the debt that we are incurring right now, today. Small business and their jobs are being destroyed, gone forever along with their owners capital, hard work, and probably a lifetime of savings.

It ain't all about baseball, but baseball isn't a bad representation as to what's being lost forever, that cannot be "fixed" in the future.

A lot of first-timers. Some ranked higher than I thought: Santana, Potts, Hunt, Espinoza. Some ranked lower than I thought: Weathers, Arias, Olivares. The good thing is 14 guys ranked FV 45 or higher.

While a couple of those guys will probably graduate (assuming that there IS a 2020 season; if not, who knows where things go?), I can easily see 3 or 4 of those guys moving up to the MLB top 100 this year. Head and Baez, are two. Don't know Santana well, but he had some eye popping numbers in AZL.

I looked around to find info on Santana, so I'll contribute this (from Mad Friars, who had him as runner up to CJ Abrams for 2019 AZL player of the year). So, yeah, if he continues producing like that in 2020, I would expect him move up to the MLB top 100, also. He should start in Tri-City (if Abrams goes to Ft Wayne), or Ft Wayne if they push Abrams up to Lake Elsinore. I can't see the Padres starting both in the same league, unless they have one playing 2B, and that's unwise developmentally.

An 18-year-old true shortstop putting up offensive production 50% above the league average would normally rate among the top storylines in rookie ball. However, playing across the complex from Abrams and with an unusually large crop of 17-year-olds making their stateside debuts in the Valley of the Sun, Santana’s impressive campaign flew somewhat under the radar. After flashing strong pitch recognition ability in his DSL debut last summer, the big-swinging Dominican nearly doubled his extra-base hit rate in his first taste of the friendly offensive environment of Arizona without sacrificing much in patience. While batted ball data from the backfields are notably unreliable, the numbers and anecdotal reports both support the fact that he hit the ball hard and often. His timeline for getting to full-season ball next year is at least as dependent on others as himself, but Santana is a name few yet know who you should be watching.

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While a couple of those guys will probably graduate (assuming that there IS a 2020 season; if not, who knows where things go?), I can easily see 3 or 4 of those guys moving up to the MLB top 100 this year. Head and Baez, are two.

Baez won't. Why? A) If he makes the major league roster, he'll graduate sooner than later. b) If he begins at El Paso (as I suspect), he'd have to put up eye-popping numbers over at least half a season as a starter to be considered for Top 100 rankings. And if he does that, he'll be back up long before those rankings are assessed (See A). C) He is sent to El Paso and is mediocre.

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I looked around to find info on Santana, so I'll contribute this (from Mad Friars, who had him as runner up to CJ Abrams for 2019 AZL player of the year). So, yeah, if he continues producing like that in 2020, I would expect him move up to the MLB top 100, also. He should start in Tri-City (if Abrams goes to Ft Wayne), or Ft Wayne if they push Abrams up to Lake Elsinore. I can't see the Padres starting both in the same league, unless they have one playing 2B, and that's unwise developmentally.

From my understanding, Santana is the most viable pure shortstop in the system next to Arias. He's intriguing.

What I found really jaw-dropping about Longenhagen's overall list can be found by scrolling down ... beyond the top 53. There are some guys under the "Crafty Arms Too Young to Drink" that would be in many teams' Top 30.

Says Longenhagen ... "If you’re thinking, 'Gee, that’s a lot of guys in this one, very specific category,' that’s because this is the largest honorable mention subgroup I’ve ever put together."

A couple could make a Joey Cantillo-like jump.

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Well, I'm sure there will be lots of surprises this year, if only the minor leagues can get going. We both know that the Padres farm system is loaded with talent, up and down, and the "top 100" MLB lists are only focused on big money signings and hot runners, like CJ Abrams. Trammell, for example, was seen as a top prospect, until he had one down year, and really, if you look at his entire year, it was more like a developmental year, with lots of progress. I agree that there are young guys buried down in the AZL who are going to put up shocking numbers there, or at Tri-City (is there such a thing; or has Tri City been eliminated?!) or Fort Wayne.

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Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that Major League Baseball is considering doing away with the American and National Leagues for the 2020 season.

It's just one of several scenarios that the league and the players' association is discussing. The idea would be to split the 30 teams between Arizona and Florida based on the geography of their spring training sites, constructing realigned Cactus League and Grapefruit League divisions during what would be an abbreviated season. Nightengale says that the designated hitter "would likely be universally implemented" under this scenario and that two more Wild Card teams could be added or they could possibly have a postseason tournament with all 30 teams. Like the proposed "Arizona Plan," this is just one idea that's being kicked around, as it doesn't appear anything is close to being decided.

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The original Imperial College numbers were 2.2M dead. With mitigation added in, it dropped to 1/2M. Fauci claimed less than that, 100K to 200K dead. Current estimate is 60K dead. 80K died in 2018 from the "normal" flu. Normal figures from cardiac arrests, renal failure, and other natural causes are down, because they are all being added to the CoViD-19 figures. People die every year. People die every day. It's sad. It happens, from all sorts of causes. Shutting down a $22T economy and bankrupting millions of Americans and American businesses won't stop people from dying.

The bottom line is that the numbers you are relying on, don't add up, and neither you nor anyone else can prove, in any way, shape or form, that the national shutdown was the key mitigation factor, that reduced deaths. Certainly, it helps. However, we haven't shutdown before. Will we do it again? Fauci and Birx are already talking about "the next time".

So, we can agree to disagree, as friends with common goals and interests. However, I'm not being insensitive, foolish, or insane, when I state flatly that the model numbers were garbage, the shutdown is too costly an approach to solving the annual flu problem (there are different strains every year), and that this country MUST reopen for business, or face a decade of ruin. I'm in a high risk category. If I die from CoViD-19, I STILL won't change my opinion that re-mediating it, maybe saving my own life, is worth the long term financial damage. Generations yet unborn, will bear the debt that we are incurring right now, today. Small business and their jobs are being destroyed, gone forever along with their owners capital, hard work, and probably a lifetime of savings.

It ain't all about baseball, but baseball isn't a bad representation as to what's being lost forever, that cannot be "fixed" in the future.

Listen to Scott Adams explanation of modeling on his podcast from yesterday evening. Modeling has very little to do with accuracy. Modeling is used to influence people to do what you want them to do. First they decided that people should stay in place and then they generated a model that would get people to do that. He worked doing models at one time and when the model didn't come out to what the management wanted he was told to redo it.

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Return MLB to action ASAP, so that teams and players could at least prepare for a season, and

Change the league the least, allowing it to pick up and start a shortened season as early as May 15th.

If the MLB authorized a radical change (re: GS19's post), and they are 45 or 60 games into their new, altered AZ season by July 1st when city stadiums are all open for business, then they can't roll back those changes. They can't develop a schedule with 30 teams playing each other, hip-hopping back and forth to play games in all 30 cities. There's a reason there are leagues and inter-league schedules, and that reason is minimizing travel. Any such AZ plan would destroy the 2020 MLB season worse than the virus and shutdown. It's ludicrous. It would keep MLB in the 105F scorching hot AZ summer, in open stadiums, for the whole season. Those suggesting these kind of substantial, irrevocable changes to MLB's structure for the 2020 season, have bought into the Kool-aid. There is NO WAY this national shutdown lasts much longer than May 1st. By May 31st, states who have committed to a long term shutdown will be challenged by both the data, and the MAJORITY OF OTHER STATES which reopened for business May 1st, and are recovering financially.

Restarting spring training ASAP, makes sense, even if playing to empty stadiums. On the other hand, as I have said, if we can "social distance" at super markets, groups of fans can watch separated by four seats per group. Those AZ and FL spring training stadiums wouldn't need to be completely empty. Broadcast all those ST#2. games to tell the country, "we're ready to contribute, we're ready to reopen baseball and help restart the economy." Then, start the season when it's safe to do so. Instead of MLB's expressed rule that 100% of the team cities must be open before the MLB resumes play, it'd be wiser to modify that to something like 90% of the teams. The two, four or six teams who can't start their season, could be reformed into their own league later in the season, and be subsidized, if necessary, by the other teams.

Don't bother ragging on me, accusing me of putting money over lives and so forth, because of my opinion. I know that I'm not wrong about the CoViD-19 impact, nor about the shutdown ending sooner, than later. We'll just see how this all plays out.

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Listen to Scott Adams explanation of modeling on his podcastfrom yesterday evening. Modeling has very little to do with accuracy. Modeling is used to influence people to do what you want them to do. First they decided that people should stay in place and then they generated a model that would get people to do that. He worked doing models at one time and when the model didn't come out to what the management wanted he was told to redo it.

I agree with that statement in bold, and it's reprehensible in a democratic society. It's manipulative, and authoritarian.

I'm not going to bother arguing CoViD-19 facts with you, as facts make little difference against religious belief. You have your chosen facts which support your beliefs, and any others to the contrary, you will not consider much less read. Nothing I wrote in my last post about the shutdown, was untrue. The Wuhan flu is bad, but it's not bad enough to justify destroying hundreds of millions of lives economically, when conventional medicine has been used year after year to control similar epidemics. There is no proof, none whatsoever, that "social distancing" is the mitigating reason "the curve" is flattening, that justify the statistics originally claimed that are wrong by 100 fold. It doesn't exist. You can't cite it. (And no, I'm not watching a 36 minute youtube.)

This is the Padres forum, and we're both too far over the edge, and away from baseball on this thread. I know that you mean well, and please understand, so do I.

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The original Imperial College numbers were 2.2M dead. With mitigation added in, it dropped to 1/2M. Fauci claimed less than that, 100K to 200K dead. Current estimate is 60K dead. 80K died in 2018 from the "normal" flu. Normal figures from cardiac arrests, renal failure, and other natural causes are down, because they are all being added to the CoViD-19 figures. People die every year. People die every day. It's sad. It happens, from all sorts of causes. Shutting down a $22T economy and bankrupting millions of Americans and American businesses won't stop people from dying.

Like I saidid way back at the beginning of this thing it's a catch 22. If you do nothing the crisis could get really bad. If you mitigate harshly, you will never get a pat on the rear for lowering the numbers because then people will say "see? It wasn't that bad. We didn't need all this mitigation."

Madness is the exception in individuals, but the rule in groups.

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There is NO WAY this national shutdown lasts much longer than May 1st. By May 31st, states who have committed to a long term shutdown will be challenged by both the data, and the MAJORITY OF OTHER STATES which reopened for business May 1st, and are recovering financially.

Officials outlined the stark paths ahead for Los Angeles County. If the stay-at-home order was quickly rescinded and people resumed their normal habits, an astonishing 95.6% of L.A. County residents would be infected with the coronavirus by Aug. 1, according to projections released by the county.

Staying at the current levels of physical distancing would still result in 29.8% of residents being infected by Aug. 1.

But increasing our efforts to stay apart from one another by one-third could reduce that to just having 5.5% of Los Angeles County residents infected by Aug. 1.

Put another way: Junking the stay-at-home order now would result in 18,000 people needing hospitalization in L.A. County by mid-May, in a county with fewer than 4,000 beds. But maintaining the current level of physical distancing would keep the number of those needing hospitalization under 1,000 by late May, and significantly lower if we improved our physical distancing.

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Restarting spring training ASAP, makes sense, even if playing to empty stadiums. On the other hand, as I have said, if we can "social distance" at super markets, groups of fans can watch separated by four seats per group.

What makes you so sure the players and all other non-essential employees that would be required to show up would be so keen to put their lives at risk for our entertainment?

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Don't bother ragging on me, accusing me of putting money over lives and so forth, because of my opinion. I know that I'm not wrong about the CoViD-19 impact, nor about the shutdown ending sooner, than later. We'll just see how this all plays out.

That's not how this works, buddy. You voice your opinion here, it can be argued against. If you choose to plug your fingers in your ears and refuse to listen because you're so sure of yourself, that's your choice.

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Like I saidid way back at the beginning of this thing it's a catch 22. If you do nothing the crisis could get really bad. If you mitigate harshly, you will never get a pat on the rear for lowering the numbers because then people will say "see? It wasn't that bad. We didn't need all this mitigation."